Thursday, March 08, 2012

Time for a Guiness

I have been over in the south of Ireland this week, running a training course. First off, having refused to fly Ryan Air in the past on principle, I was pleasantly surprised at how how efficient and on-time the no-frills operation was between Stansted and Cork. I also found the airport security at Stansted to be a far less stressful and light-hearted experience. This is in contrast to the norm at Heathrow and Gatwick, where there's a constant risk of offending someone with a careless comment, as we heard on the news a week ago.

On this occasion, I was lucky enough to see a large chunk of Ireland's magnificent scenery from the air and stayed with another pilot, a well-known former RAF Harrier driver, at his farm, which has a convenient airstrip, a big Cessna Caravan(pictured) which he let me fly and three delightful pubs with perfect draught Guiness on tap, in the small village nearby. I must make the time to see more of the country and the small airfield we were using for training was adjacent to the 'Blackwater' which I'm told is famous for its fishing.

Back to Thanet and I hear that one of our independent councillors, having given-up on the idea of mounting his own palace coup to take over leadership of the independent group from Tom King, now plans to establish the Thanet 'Progressive Independent Party', which may be a first. I can understand why people are turned-off local politics when it becomes a matter of personalities and private ambition when it should be all about policies and delivery.

I'm warned, that tonight, our new council Diversity Champion will attempt to set Birchington on its course for independence from the rest of Thanet, declaring a form of UDI and beating Scotland's SNP to a referendum by over a year. Given the rather bizarre, personality-based political shenanigans presently taking place in Birchington, this will quite possibly provide the evening's best entertainment and I plan to go along and watch at the Birchington Centre 7.30 p.m

10 comments:

Anonymous
said...

I asked John about the Liberal thing, and as I thought, it was just a rumour, but he is leaving the Independent group to work with Ian Driver in the new "Progressive Independent Alliance Group" and another councillor, who is crossing the foor,is joining them. (when she resigns)

Worrow does know the liberals are in a coalition with the conservatives or does he? Won' t he have to tow the party line then......he changes colour like he changes his shirts - oh and Simon - please don't put that picture of him up again. I used to like the Munsters!!!!

Haven't all these attention-seeking "Independents" noticed that there are more important things to worry about than their egos and personal ambitions. Before you get too smug, this also applies to party-affiliated souls as well; it's just that Messrs Worrow and Driver are on-topic. Messrs Wells and Harrison need to be a bit careful in what they say, Mr Flaig needs to get off his elevated equine occasionally and drop his ridiculous idea that the BBC is right-wing - he must be the only person in the world who believes that! You can understand why Michael is thinking of giving up.